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How do I get Firefox torecognize and use my old profile?

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I copied my old profile into the profile folder of a new installation of Firefox. Removed the default. Firefox won't read my old profile. Every time I restart Firefox, it creates a new default profile. My old profile, of course, has all my old bookmarks, user names and passwords which I need. I need to get up and running.

I copied my old profile into the profile folder of a new installation of Firefox. Removed the default. Firefox won't read my old profile. Every time I restart Firefox, it creates a new default profile. My old profile, of course, has all my old bookmarks, user names and passwords which I need. I need to get up and running.

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You would have to register that profile in the profiles.ini file to make Firefox recognize this profile.

  • use the Profile Manager to create a new profile
  • click "Choose Folder" in the Profile Manager
  • browse to the location of a lost profile to recover this profile and register it in the Profile Manager

Note that you should never use "Choose Folder" to specify a folder that already contains files that do not belong to Firefox (i.e. only use "Choose Folder" to recover an orphaned profile)


You can copy files like these to the current Firefox profile folder to recover specific data.

  • bookmarks and history: places.sqlite
  • bookmark backups: compressed .jsonlz4 backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
  • cookies.sqlite for the cookies
  • formhistory.sqlite for saved form data
  • logins.json and key3.db (decryption key) for Passwords saved in the Password Manager
  • cert8.db and possibly cert_override.txt for (intermediate) certificates stored in the Certificate Manager
  • persdict.dat for words you added to the spelling checker dictionary
  • permissions.sqlite for Permissions and possibly content-prefs.sqlite for other Site Preferences
  • sessionstore.js for open tabs and pinned tabs